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March 08, 2025
 

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Patrick St. Michel
Patrick St. Michel is a Tokyo-based writer with a focus on Japanese music. He runs the blog Make Believe Melodies, which has focused on Japanese independent music since 2009. Besides The Japan Times, he also contributes to MTV 81 and The Atlantic.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 1, 2012
Your Gold, My Pink 'Teenage Riot'
Your Gold, My Pink's decision to name its debut full-length album "Teenage Riot" shows some serious guts from the young quartet. It's a title that has certain connotations, that either the band embraces the adolescent rebellion of punk — or just really likes Sonic Youth. This "Teenage Riot," though,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 23, 2012
Salyu "Photogenic"
"Photogenic" is the sound of a wrongfully imprisoned inmate who was cleared of all charges being sent back to prison for no good reason. J-pop siren Salyu (born Ayako Mori) has spent the majority of her decade-plus career singing over generic instrumentals, her voice wasted on sounds better suited for...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 9, 2012
Galileo Galilei "Portal"
Galileo Galilei's sophomore album, "Portal," manages to both document everything that's wrong with contemporary mainstream Japanese rock music and offer a better way for guitar-centric pop in this county. This Hokkaido group falls through many of the same trapdoors as artists dotting the Oricon Charts,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 2, 2012
Tokyo Jihen "Color Bars"
Tokyo Jihen's first five albums have titles relating to types of television programming, "Sports" or "Variety" or "Adult." The Shiina-Ringo-led group's sixth album, though, is titled "Color Bars," after the rainbow lines that grace the TV screen during technical difficulties or dead-air time. It's a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 26, 2012
Seiho launches Day Tripper label with 'Mercury'
Seiho Hayakawa started making music the way a lot of curious kids growing up in the digital age did — by fiddling with his cell-phone ringer. But he eventually plunged headfirst into the world of jazz as a high school student, with a trumpet at his side.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 26, 2012
The Creams "Panache"
Osaka's The Creams put on one of the better live sets in the Kansai region today, playing the sort of dance-rock that seems like it was plotted out on graph paper in the vein of 1980's cool kids such as Liquid Liquid or ESG. Yet on stage, The Creams round out their music with a sense of menace and unpredictability,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 22, 2011
Best of 2011: Miila and the Geeks "New Age"
Miila and the Geek's debut album, "New Age," would be my favorite Japanese album of 2011 even without the postquake context into which it was released.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 1, 2011
Friends "Let's Get Together Again"
In an interview with The Japan Times in May, Friends frontman Syouta Kaneko put forth U.S. band The Beach Boys as one of their influences. A glance at the artwork for "Let's Get Together Again" — found photos of people enjoying the summer — or any blog writeup of Friends' sound ("beach," "surf" and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 10, 2011
Sapphire Slows "True Breath"
The music Sapphire Slows conjures up on her debut EP, "True Breath," floats between genres: dance music, dream pop and ambient are just a few. However, the element uniting these five songs is really how unsettling they can sound — even at their most danceable.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 10, 2011
At Innit's Osaka parties it's bring your own beats
Osaka's Innit crew don't hold your typical club event. Though their parties feature a mix of live performers and DJs, founder Masayuki Kubo wants to attract a particular type of reveler — aspiring artists. The Osaka native offers a ¥500 discount for anyone who brings along electronic music that they...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 3, 2011
Canopies and Drapes "Violet, Lilly, Rose, Daisy" (Love Action)
The world Canopies And Drapes crafts on her debut EP "Violet, Lilly, Rose, Daisy" feels like a particularly woozy dream, albeit one undercut by the ever-lurking obstacles of reality. The project of Tokyo artist "Chick," her music hasn't always sounded like this — she used to sing for the under-appreciated...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 13, 2011
Honeydew "Don't Know Where"
"Don't Know Where" lacks prerelease hype, sub-subgenre classification or needless gimmicks (unless consistant lyrical allusions to driving cars qualifies — autocore, anyone?). Honeydew's debut album is a simple collection of feedback-assisted indie pop reminiscent of U.S. group Yo La Tengo's catchier...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 13, 2011
Sakanaction "DocumentaLy"
"DocumentaLy," rock outfit Sakanaction's fifth full-length, stands as the group's best effort to date and one of the biggest mainstream triumphs in Japanese music this year. The Tokyo-based band didn't accomplish this through a sudden change in sound or any other grandiose moves often associated with...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 6, 2011
Seiji
Dance-music maker Paul Dolby, aka Seiji, has played with many electronic genres since he began DJing in the 1990s. The Seiji coming to Japan this weekend releases club-centric tracks for free on his website while also putting his personal spin on artists such as Erykah Badu and Gorillaz.
CULTURE / Music
Oct 6, 2011
Second Royal
Record label Second Royal won't just be putting on a concert this Sunday in their hometown of Kyoto, but rather a state-of-Japanese-indie-music address. The imprint's event at Club Metro features some of Japan's most buzzed (and blogged) about artists going today. Past gigs point to this being a great...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 22, 2011
Mop Of Head praises recent past on debut
Mop Of Head founder Takashi "George" Wakamatsu had a pretty standard musical upbringing. He studied piano from the age of 3, and says he listened mostly to classical music and old jazz. Then he heard a track that changed his life ...British dance duo The KLF's "F-ck The Millennium."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 15, 2011
Ogre You Asshole "Homely"
Ogre You Asshole's "Homely" practically begs to be considered as the band's artistic leap forward. The band has traded in the guitar-centric, 1990s-indie sound of its previous releases for a slower-moving vibe featuring an abundance of bongos and saxophone. It's a challenging LP to dive into: the catchy...
CULTURE / Music
Sep 1, 2011
Miila and the Geeks "New Age"
Miila and the Geeks show a great aptitude for the past on their debut album "New Age." The generally fuzzy atmosphere of the whole record evokes 1960s garage rock, with lead singer Moe Wadaka's sinisterly sexy vocals conjuring up early PJ Harvey. The inclusion of a mind-of-its-own saxophone winds up...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 18, 2011
Chili Peppers dominate Summer Sonic
It was clear on the second day of Summer Sonic that this year's event belonged to the evening's headliners Red Hot Chili Peppers. A casual stroll around Chiba's Makuhari Messe complex revealed a noticeable uptick from the day before in the number of shirtless dudes sporting tribal-band tattoos.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 28, 2011
Various artists Style Band Tokyo Compilation Vol. 1
Existing mainly as a live-music event since 2007, Style Band Tokyo has gone the recording route and released a CD featuring artists associated with its gigs. The compilation is a collection of great, noisy rock.
Cherry blossom season set to kick off on March 21 in Tokyo
A Weathernews forecast shows the cherry blossom season will begin on March 21 in Tokyo.
Tokyo responds to Trump remarks on 'interesting' Japan-U.S. security pact
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (left) and U.S. President Donald Trump arrive for a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, on Feb. 7.
Nagoya High Court rules not recognizing same-sex marriage unconstitutional
Following the Nagoya High Court ruling on the same-sex marriage lawsuit, lawyers and others raise banners and boards that read "unconstitutional" and similar statements on Friday in Naka Ward, Nagoya.
Foreign single mothers struggle with language barriers and visas
Forbidden from seeing friends and forced to devote herself to housework, Reina (whose name has been changed), a 37-year-old Filipino national living in the city of Nagoya, became socially isolated.
At 102, world's oldest pharmacist celebrates her calling
Kesa Hatamoto, a 102-year-old Japanese woman who is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest pharmacist, speaks during an interview on Jan. 28 in Tokyo's Meguro Ward.
Cherry blossom season set to kick off on March 21 in Tokyo
A Weathernews forecast shows the cherry blossom season will begin on March 21 in Tokyo.
‘Granny hobbies’ are the new self-care
Yarn shortages are a sign that hobbies like knitting and crochet are gaining in popularity.
Can Shiori Ito’s documentary open Japan’s black box?
Shiori Ito is the first Japanese director to have been nominated for an Academy Award for best documentary feature film. "Black Box Diaries," which tells the story of her quest for justice following her rape in 2015, hasn't been released in Japan.
Japanese stocks stalled at 1989 levels as investors weigh tariffs and rates
An electronic sign displays the benchmark Nikkei stock average on a street in Tokyo. The stock average has been range-bound between about 38,000 and 40,000 since hitting a new all-time high in July last year.
Redevelopment and resistance in historic Nishiogikubo
Tsuyoshi Mizukoshi, owner of a pub in Nishiogi’s commercial area, is a community organizer who is rallying local residents against the road development plan.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Wealthier women in the prewar era had been the targets of various media-related health campaigns that mistakenly encouraged them to avoid everything from riding bicycles to reading novels when their monthly cycles came around.
Menstruation in Japan: Breaking the silence, slowly
By Tomoko Otake

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